Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of communications. In particular, the present invention relates to a server, a physical switch and a communication system for use in communication between virtual machines.
Background of the Related Art
System virtualization is a process of hiding bottom-layer physical hardware in a specific manner, such that a plurality of operating systems can share the physical hardware. In a typical system virtualization environment, a virtual machine management program (hypervisor) is responsible for coordinating access to all the physical devices and virtual machines on a server. A plurality of virtual machines may be present on one server, and these virtual machines may need to communicate with each other. However, different from the interconnection between the common physical devices via an entity network device, the network interfaces of the virtual machine are also virtualized, and therefore the interconnection between the network interfaces may not be directly implemented via the entity network device.
One currently prevailing solution is to virtualize the network device with reference to the implementation manner of the virtual machine, and bind the network device to the server. As such, the network interfaces on the virtual machine may be directly interconnected inside the virtual machine via such a virtual network device as a virtual switch and the like, with no need of the entity network device.
Similar to a common server, each virtual machine has its own virtual network card (vNIC), wherein each vNIC has its own MAC address and IP address. The virtual switch is equivalent to a virtual two-layer switch, and has its own virtual port. The virtual switch is connected to a virtual network card and a physical network card, and sends out data packets from the virtual machine on the physical network card.
However, tens of virtual machines may run on the same server. Therefore, a server may generate a significant load on the network. In addition, since the virtual switch is merely practiced via software, the functionality and performance of the virtual switch is incomparable to a traditional entity network device.
Further, in terms of management rights, a network manager substantially fails to manage all the virtual switches, and a host manager is also unwilling to spend too much time in network configuration. As a result, the virtual switch is freely outside the entire management of the network, which is unfavorable to implementation of the entire network policy and network security.
In addition, in a modern data center, more and more virtual switches are being deployed in a virtual machine management program of a private or public cloud solution. The virtual machine nested in the virtual machine management program is similar to a physical switch, and is configured to transmit packets between the virtual machines. A data center may have thousands of servers, which indicates the possibility that thousands of virtual switches may be deployed and managed. Compared with the traditional data center, this may increase the asset cost and operation cost. With respect to new cloud demands, such as software defined network (SDN) practice and the like, the virtual switch becomes more and more complicated, which may occupy more server resources and reduce the performance of the server.
At present, the SDN may reduce the operating cost when a large number of virtual switches are deployed. However, the SDN still has various drawbacks. Firstly, with respect to support of the SDN function, the virtual switch is still complicated, and may consume a significant amount of server resources (CPU/memory). Secondly, the asset cost is not reduced. Thirdly, although SDN centralized management may simplify the overall management, the SDN controller must handle a huge workload in order to manage a large number of virtual switches. Fourthly, the SDN is a new technology, and thus many users lack confidence in use of the technology.